The present invention relates to a novel dump chute assembly for depositing combustible waste material into an incinerator chimney.
Apartments, condominiums, office buildings and similar structures include an incinerator in the basement area of the building and a chimney extending upwardly through the various floors thereof to the roof of the building. Each floor of the building includes an access opening to the chimney by which garbage or trash may be deposited into the chimney for subsequent incineration. The incinerator is generally a gas burner or the like which requires sufficient draft to permit the gases to be dispelled from the chimney during combustion.
Several prior art structures have been suggested as hopper assemblies or dump chutes for communicating with the interior of the incinerator chimney. U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,530,787, 1,880,370, 1,297,360 and 2,081,554 describe hopper doors which are pivotally secured to an opening in the chimney which permit the hopper door to open and refuse to be deposited therein. When the hopper door is pivotally closed, the hopper portion of the door permits the refuse to slide into the chimney of the incinerator. Although such structures are simple in construction, such hopper devices interfere with the necessary draft created during incineration and permit the passage of fumes and other impurities past the hinged hopper structures into the floor of the building.
To overcome the deficiencies such hinged structures, U.S. Pat. No. 2,161,412 describes a structure for use in conjunction with a conventional hopper door wherein, when the hopper door is opened for placement of refuse therein, there is admitted pass the opened door, through an operable damper valve, a draft to the chimney during incinerator. Such a structure attempts to prevent ash and fumes from passing out the incinerator door opening when refuse is deposited therein. U.S. Pat. No. 3,812,979 describes a further apparatus for preventing fumes and smoke leakage from chimneys having a conventional dump chute wherein the device includes a separate enclosure surrounding the dump chute with means subjects the interior of the enclosure to a slight positive pressure to overcome the pressure differences in the chimney and prevent fumes and material from escaping through the incinerator chute opening. Such complicated structures which require separate blowers for maintaining positive pressures around the incinerator chute opening are expensive and inefficient in operation in that they do not seal the incinerator opening to prevent escapage of fumes and the like from the incinerator into the hallway or floor space of the building.